Causes of the War of 66-70

In 66, the Roman emperor Nero
needed money, and ordered his representative in Judaea,
Gessius Florus, to confiscate it from the Temple treasure. The governor
was not amused when some Jewish jokers passed the hat round for "that poor
procurator
Florus" (Flavius
Josephus, Jewish
War, 2.295). He demanded their punishment, but when his
policemen could not find the mockers, he had some passersby arrested and
crucified.

Of course this was tactless and brutal, but it it would not have led
to the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple if there had not been one
or two deeper causes. The obvious reason why this incident led to war,
was the religious tension between the Jewish populace and the Roman government.
However, the Roman governors and the Temple authorities had found practical
solutions to deal with these problems.

The real reason for the war was the impoverishment of the Jewish peasantry.
Sixty years of Roman taxation had meant only one thing: the Jews had to
pay money, which was spent in Italy and on the border. Judaea had become
substantially poorer and many peasants had been forced first to mortgage
and then to sell their land. Besides, in Jerusalem many people had become
unemployed when he renovation of the temple was finished in 63. The peasants
and artsians had a reason to fight, and they were willing to do so.

There may have been a portent that gave them hope. There was a prophecy
in the book of Numbers (24.17) that 'a star shall come forth out of Jacob,
a scepter shall rise out of Israel', which was commonly taken to be a prediction of the Messiah. At the end of 64, there had been a comet (Tacitus, Annals, 15.47), which must have made a discontent populace even more discontent.

For some time, the Temple authorities had been able to check the peasant's
anger. But in the third quarter of the first century, most people considered
the high priesthood corrupt. The war of 66-70 was not only a war between
the Romans and Jews, it was also a class struggle.

The year 66: escalation

The incident with the collection plate set fire to the powder. Even though
the high priest Ananias and the Jewish prince Marcus
Julius Agrippa tried to pour oil on the troubled waters, they were
no longer in control of the situation. Many moderates were maltreated;
while envoys were on their way to Nero, one of the Roman garrisons in Jerusalem
was annihilated. War had become inevitable.

In August 66, a man named Menahem
made a raid on the fortress of Masada, where he seized lots of weapons.
This Menahem was the son or the grandson of Judas
the Galilean, who had led an anti-Roman revolt in 6 CE; two of his
relatives had been crucified after a similar disturbance. The group of
Menahem was called Sicarians ('dagger men'). They hailed their leader
as king of the Jews and went to Jerusalem, where they laid siege to the
remaining Roman garrison. The new king had the high priest Ananias executed,
but when he went to the Temple, he was lynched by the adherents of Ananias'
son. The Sicarians left Jerusalem and returned to Masada, which they used
as a base for a guerilla war, until they were defeated in 74 (below).

In September 66, the Romans in Jerusalem
surrendered and were lynched. Meanwhile, the Greek inhabitants of the capital
of Judaea, Caesarea, attacked their Jewish neighbors; the Jews replied
in kind, expelling many Greeks from Judaea, Galilee and the Golan heights.

When Gessius Florus was replaced (by Antonius Julianus), the governor of
Syria, Gaius Cestius Gallus, tried to pacify the rebellious province
and led a legion -the twelfth,
surnamed Fulminata- to Jerusalem. It was reinforced with units of III
Gallica, IIII
Scythica and VI
Ferrata, plus auxiliaries and allies. It liberated the pro-Roman capital
of Galilee, Sepphoris, and continued to Jerusalem.

In November, however, the army was forced to return; on his way back,
he was defeated by one of the leaders of the Zealots, Eleaser son of Simon.
Humiliation was added to the disgrace: the legion lost its standard. This
may have been a Jewish success, but it was clear that the Romans would
return with a larger army, and many people left Jerusalem, leaving it in
the hands of the radicals. There is a late tradition that says that among
those who went away, were the Jewish Christians.

Rabbis like Yohanan ben Zakkai still counseled peace,
making a distinction between obligatory and optional war. They were a minority,
however, and most Jews prepared for a big war.

Bust of Vespasian from Narona (Archaeological museum of Vid)

The year 67: outbreak of the war

The Temple authorities elected generals and ordered them to take charge
of the countryside. (One of these was Joseph son of Matthias, the future
historian
Flavius
Josephus.) One of their aims was to seize the ports, which would make
it difficult for the Romans to land their forces. At the same time, Nero
appointed a new commander: Titus Flavius Vespasianus, also known as Vespasian.
This old war horse, who had commanded legions in Germania and Britain,
had recently been pensioned off after falling asleep during one of Nero's
musical performances; his recall proves that the situation had become very
critical indeed. Vespasian appointed his son Titus
as one of his lieutenants; his younger son Domitian
was kept in honorable detention at the imperial court - to make sure that
his father would not rebel.

While both sides were preparing for a great war, peasant leaders arose
in Judaea. Some of them tried to keep their community out of the war, others
organized militias to attack all non-Jews. One of the latter was
John
of Gischala, who controlled the Galilean countryside, which was the
province assigned to Joseph son of Matthias. Soon, the two generals were
at each others throats, which prevented the Jews from seizing Sepphoris,
the pro-Roman capital of Galilee.

Vespasian's first action was to reinforce Sepphoris (Spring 67). Immediately
after the rainy season, he proceeded to the port of Ptolemais (modern Acre),
where he gathered his troops. The tenth
legion, surnamed Fretensis, he had taken over from the Syrian governor
Cestius, who had committed suicide; the fifth
legion, called Macedonica, had been under his own command for some
time. His son Titus brought the fifteenth
legion, Apollinaris. In addition to this army, there were numerous
cavalry units and auxiliary troops.

Vespasian now expelled John of Gischala from a town named Gadara, and
after this first success, he marched on Jotapata, which was defended by
Joseph son of Matthias. After a bitter struggle, the Romans took the city;
its commander was taken prisoner and saved his life by applying the messianic
prophecy to Vespasian and predicting him imperial rule (1 July; go
here
and here
for the full story).

The road to Sepphoris being now secured, Vespasian
proceeded along the coast to liberate the ports. Meanwhile, John of Gischala
continued the struggle in the Golan heights, on Mount Tabor and from his
hometown Gischala. It took Vespasian's son Titus and other commanders a
lot of time and energy to pacify Galilee. However, in January 68, they
had succeeded.

In November 67, John had abandoned his guerilla war and gone to Jerusalem,
where he became an important leader, behaving himself as a king. There
were two other parties in the city: the Sadducee
Temple authorities and the Zealots of Eleaser son of Simon. The latter
were the most influential: they occupied the Temple, removed the high priest
from the scene and replaced him by a strawman named Phannias. Frequently,
these two parties used violence in their quarrels, and many Jews left the
city.

They told the Roman generals about the civil strife; and Vespasian decided
to postpone his attack until the defenders had worn themselves down. He
used the spring of 68 to gain control of the Jordan valley and the fertile
region called Peraea ('the other side', that is, of the Jordan river).
Meanwhile, his soldiers seized the crops of the Jewish peasantry. During
this campaign, the settlement at Qumran -where the Scrolls of the Dead Sea were found- was destroyed by soldiers of X Fretensis.

Having achieved control of Galilee, the coastal region and the Jordan
valley, Vespasian could have attacked Jerusalem from three sides. At that
moment, however, a messenger brought remarkable news came from Italy: Nero
had committed suicide and a senator
named Galba
was the new ruler of the Roman Empire. Vespasian immediately sent his son
Titus to Rome to congratulate the new emperor, but before he had reached
Greece, he learned that Galba had been lynched by his own guard. Two new
pretenders, Vitellius
and Otho, were
engaged in a civil war.

Titus returned to Judaea, where his father decided to postpone the
war against the Jews and to intervene in the civil war. Vespasian and Titus
were clever diplomats, who secured the support of several Syrian princes,
the governor of Egypt and the legions along the Danube. In July 69, on
hearing the news that Vitellius had defeated Otho, Vespasian had himself
proclaimed emperor, claiming that he wanted to avenge Galba. He went to
Egypt, where he cut off the Italian food supply. In September, the army
of the Danube defeated the troops of Vitellius. In December, Vespasian
was the sole ruler of the world empire. The man who had predicted it, Joseph
son of Matthias, was released and received Roman citizenship and a new
name Flavius
Josephus.

To the Jews, the situation did not seem hopeless. The appearance of
a new comet (Cassius
Dio, Roman History, 65=66.8.1) seemed to indicate that the time
for the great war of liberation had come? And indeed. The Romans had paused
their attacks for some time, there was a civil war, and at the other end
of the empire, the Batavians
had revolted, and a new emperor, Julius
Sabinus, had been proclaimed in Gaul. Some optimism was permitted.